Network Performance Testing

At work we use the Anue Systems Ethernet Network Emulator for testing various parts of our products.  Most typically, we use them for emulating a WAN between various products – they allow us to precisely simulate network conditions including loss, latency, jitter, and many other properties.  They’re also useful when you want to see how a web interface deals with these sorts of scenarios.

Note: in the pictures included, it appears that the Anue systems are made by Spirent – this is not the case.  Anue had a reseller agreement with Spirent at the time we purchased the equipment, and it came branded as Spirent, but we still deal with Anue for support and follow on work.

The Anue has been rock-solid and very reliable.  It’s integrated into our automation via their TCL interface, and we step through many different scenarios this way.  We also gather a wealth of information from the Anue to back up the statistics we are also gathering from the network test harness, and the product under test.  Overall it’s been one of the least problematic pieces of test gear we’ve ever used.

It boots super fast, and has one of the most to-the-point and speedy web UI’s.  No client software required, and everything is very clearly labeled and easy to read.   I like graphical UI’s to do initial setup when learning, but not when using frequently.  Many test vendors provide drag and drop functionality which I find impedes general test creation when you’re doing things frequently.

One of the nicest things I like about their web UI is when you make a change to a value, the value and field around it turn yellow, so you know you need to submit your changes before things will become active.  This is an excellent visual cue that things aren’t done yet.

The level of accuracy of the Anue is amazing.  We’ve compared it against other solutions and Anue wins hands down.  This undoubtedly has to do with their FPGA hardware architecture, and is also why they can maintain line rate without any issues.  The configurability and features are matched with many of the other vendors, and in many areas much easier to use in Anue.  They have the ability to change just about anything in the packets flowing through them, if you want.

We also use the Anue as a router within our test harnesses in some cases.  It has the ability to emulate router IP addresses and act as a default gateway.  This functionality was added in the last few years to their product, and was a requirement for our testing to simplify the amount of equipment involved.  Previously we had been using an actual router for this functionality.

There are a few things that are slightly annoying.  First, and most intrusive, a full reboot clears your entire configuration other than the management IP.  Nice if you’ve screwed things up, but not so nice if you didn’t intentionally reboot.  You can back up your configuration, or use scripts to set things up, but it would be nice to have more control over this – i.e. make it a switch whether things are erased.

One of the other things, which is an oversight in their API, is the ability to configure router IPs remotely via TCL.  This is worsened by the above problem.  The typical scenario is that when you reboot, or if the box reboots due to a power blip or otherwise, you need to connect to the GUI, re configure the router IPs, and then push the rest of your config up to the box via the TCL automation scripts.  Thankfully, the system only reboots infrequently, and there’s hope that configuring the routing functionality will be exposed to the TCL API sometime soon.

Overall, the Anue is a solid product with an easy to use GUI, reliable and detailed API, and highly accurate feature set.  As far as WAN emulators go, after having tested and used the major hardware and many smaller software vendors, this is the one I would use in any deployment because of reliability and ease of use hands down.   I like it when things work well, and deliver consistent reliable operation!